Gratuitous Will photos

Just because I haven't in a while.

Merenia created a little love nest for her and Will...

Password please!

Will feeds Daddy a bottle.

Psssttt wanna see the new fun thing....

Wooo hooo Go baby go!!

Ahhh the infinite joy that is having a sister....

♥

Good times with Ashlyn

This has to have been one of the best summer holidays for weather... there has been maybe 2 wet days... and they weren't cold just wet...

Lot's of scenes like this....

Ashlyn is moving to a MQ over in the Whenuapai Patch Merenia will surely miss her!
(I'm just jealous 'cause I'd love to live over there too!)
♥

Scrapcamp at home

As I have already said Sunday was my Scrapcamp-at-home day. I was joined by Kieley for the whole day and I believe she left just after 1am. Sweet! We both got a bunch of stuff done and have more ideas and stuff waiting for me to put them into action....

Just FYI I decided to buy the Pioneer Dot Roller from TWH to see if it would be economical and also because I wanted speed for another project I have to do. I DO NOT reccomend them at all. The bond for something that is supposed to permanent is pathetic. All those pictures on that LO above had to be stuck back down with an alternative adhesive...good old photo splits. PITA!

You can't really see it but she is actually working on something there... not just lusting after product!
♥

Shopping Road Trip

Inspired by a blog post by Shannon in the last holidays Kieley and I were keen to go check out Just Plane Interesting in Oratia and I was also keen to take Kieley to The Red Crayon which is an uber cool design store in Waimauku. We went a couple of weeks ago Will came along for the ride and Ma decided to join us as well.

We took a tiki tour going via the Riverhead-Coatesville Highway to check out a couple of other cool little places along the way but it was to no avail as everyone was still on holiday.

At Waimauku we checked out 3 places including the Red Crayon where I added another G to my collection and another shop that I can't recall the name of where I got some cool red felt Christmas Trees.

We also stopped for a Iced Coffees (not reccomended) at the cafe which I have since found out does do yummy food.

Then we headed for Oratia. Kieley had researched lunch options for us already and has it happened her number 1 choice was actually in the same complex as Just Plane Interesting. (Which also has a vineyard, Saturday Famers Market, Gallery, Craft store, and beauty treatment type place).

Lunch was pretty darn yummy K and I had Eggs Benedict and Ma had a BLT on gluten free bread- which Will was quite impressed by!

I forgot to take a photo of my lunch... it was too good to wait and Will was asleep so you take your chances while you can!

We were sitting under a lovely tree...

It was quite relaxing indeed!

Just Plane Interesting was fairly interesting although the only thing I brought was bird pegs (I wonder why?) What was cool is that they hire out their gear to film companies and theatres! If you had a bunch of money you could probably go quite nuts. :-) And it does bring back a bunch of old memories as well.

We stopped for Strawberry Ice Creams on the way home... it was a totally lovely day!
♥

Achieving Zen

We all had such a good day yesterday I think we achieved ZEN!



Seriously, the weather was beautiful. Hot enough but not too hot. We got sorted to the schedule we intended. Will slept just like he was supposed to. We picked up Kieley around about when we meant. We headed north and arrived just at the right time. When we got there the kids (Tony and Petra) had just headed to the beach so we joined them for the first swim of the day. Shakespeare is the perfect swimming beach for kids. You can go out for ages without it getting too deep. You have an awesome view of the gulf and the city and down the camping end, where we were, there's not too many people!


After a refreshing dip we headed back to 'Camp Brinkman' and had a superb picnic lunch. After which I retired to give Will a drink and sleep. The grown-ups had some amusing conversations... I know this as the laughter often drifted my way and the kids made fun... as kids do.



When Will woke up everyone had just gone down to the beach... so we joined them. The water was about 10x warmer and so even Will who wasn't going to joined in for a swim after a Seagull spotting expidition with Daddy.

We spent a bit more time hanging at camp after the swim before we had picnic dinner chatted and headed for home around 7:30pm. The view as you go inland through the Hibsicus Coast is amazing and the sun was highlighting all the good points and making the ocean twinkle.


Despite the dire predictions the traffic presented no issues and we cruised down the motorway for home. Quick baths to remove the sand and Ice creams for pudding soon after which all the children were quietly a snooze in their beds.



There are other reasons why it was a good day...

• Les tolerated the beach with grace.
• Will was a dream.
• The kids were self entertaining.
• The Brinkmans and Friends are so cool!
• The division of labour was equal- so no guilt.
• Kieley was there.
• I didn't care about wearing shorts in public.
• I didn't care about wearing togs in public.
• It was super relaxing.

♥

One fine day

I finally had my birthday 'scrapcamp-at-home' day yesterday. It rocked! And my fellow camper was sizzling hot! Woot! (I'm being both silly and serious there.)

I got 16 pages done and will post them on SSR when I get the chance.

Today we are heading up to Shakespeare Bay with Kieley for a picnic day at the beach with the Brinkmans- Sweet!

♥

A lovely Sunday a wee while back

A few weeks back Les went flying for the day and Kieran was at Jakes (what a surprise) so Merenia, Will and I headed out. We picked up Kieley and went to the Takapuna Markets... I didn't take any photos there as there wasn't all that much of interest. We did get steamed pork buns (YUM!) and this skirt....
Once were done at the market we had Starbucks (what a surprise) and had a look around the shops including Merenia spending her trade aid store voucher on some pan pipes. And me spending Kierans on a really cool bag! But Kieran reckons he doesn't like the bag so I guess I'll have to look after it.

From there we went on to have a look around the shops at Devonport. Where we also saw horses. Being the independently wealthy chick she is Merenia brought her self a ride...

That's her up bedside the driver.

Don't you wish you could hire these guys??

And also pick up a can of their sweet product?

I like their attitude and their doorway!

The local church had this sign up...

Yeah!
♥

Baby Rugby

I love this little series of photos so much I could figure out how to get it down to a more reasonable number to blog....

♥